girlgeniusfandomcom-20200214-history
The Other
|death= |parents= |relatives= |children= |marital status= }} The Other is the ostensibly undisputed villain and common foe of the main Girl Genius narrative. However, the precise nature of the Other is unknown, so it can be observed that "the Other" is little more than a synonym for what is called in another forumTVTropesWillRuinYourLife}} Tvtropes will ruin your life. "the BigBad}} Big Bad". The Hive Engines At the opening of the narrative, the firmest conception of the Other in the popular imagination — excluding a select few, such as Baron Klaus Wulfenbach — is, roughly, "he who created the revenants and ruthlessly attacked Sparks". Creation of revenants is accomplished by infecting ordinary people with "slaver wasps" which are in turn produced by "hive engines". The Other War Main article: The Other War Eighteen-some years before, the Other had come seemingly out of nowhere, attacked and effectively destroyed Castle Heterodyne, kidnapped Lady Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne, ravaged Europa, destroyed forty-three major Sparky Houses, and harried the normal citizens with Slaver Wasps and the resulting shambling Revenants. It was generally not noted that hive engine technology, though fantastically more advanced, resembled in style that of Lady Lucrezia herself. According to reports, the Heterodyne Brothers did everything they could to destroy wasp infestations and foil The Other's destruction, but all that anybody knew is that one day, the devastation stopped and the Heterodynes disappeared. Klaus, Baron von Wulfenbach Baron Wulfenbach, fighting comrade of the brothers, from wherever he had been exiled (coincidentally, ) and started to clean up the mess — leaderless Wasps and Revenants still wandered the land. In fact, because he was absent for the Other War and "benefited" from the power vacuum left at its cessation, and perhaps due to his own willingness to study, control, and destroy Sparks, some people began to entertain the notion that the Baron himself is the Other. For his part, Klaus demanded that any leftover technology that appeared the work of the Other be turned over to him immediately upon discovery. When briefing Captain (acting Admiral?) DuPree on Agatha in preparation for the attack on Sturmhalten, Klaus claims that during this period, before meeting Agatha, he had already that the Other was Lucrezia Mongfish by an analysis of the principles underlying its devices in comparison to hers, although they were more skillfully designed. T'otheron of Mars For eighteen years, to much of the world, The Other remained history, fading into horrifying legend. Theopholous DuMedd (incidentally, nephew to Lucrezia Mongfish) could convincingly create a character like T'otheron, Dragon King of Mars, based on what was known at the time. Agatha Heterodyne Bizarrely, however, some of the people closest to our Heroine, Agatha, and who had been close to Klaus, without apparently trying to "disabuse" Agatha of the notions of the Other's evil or Klaus' overall beneficence, nevertheless were not forthcoming to Klaus with whatever knowledge they may have had. In particular, Tarsus Beetle, at the time of his demise, had recently discovered or otherwise acquired a hive engine that he had been apparently preparing to put into service. How he may have intended to (selfishly?) benefit from the operation of the engine, as well as the concealment of Agatha, begins to be revealed when Mr. Rovainen, aboard Castle Wulfenbach and evidently acting on what he perceived to be Agatha's orders, does in fact activate it. Furthermore, when Agatha and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach battle the subsequently released warrior wasps, they also appear to defer to Agatha's command voice. Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer While aboard Castle Wulfenbach, Agatha also encounters Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer (who is popularly considered a hero). Despite the similarity of the name (Othar, Other) and what turns out to be Othar's self-declared primary mission (destroying all sparks), few readers and no characters would seriously entertain the notion that there is any stronger relationship. The Geisterdamen Agatha escapes Castle Wulfenbach and literally joins the circus. While on an excursion she (with Lars) encounters a pair of Geisterdamen , Eotain and Shurdlu, who take a brief interest in Agatha but evidently also determine that she is only an actressEotain or Shurdlu: So jaded. and not someone worth the effort of capturing. They are rather dismayed when ... Aaronev Sturmvoraus ... House Sturmvoraus and the Geisterdamen managed to capture Agatha Heterodyne when she passed through Sturmhalten, the Sturmvoraus seat. Using a machine rebuilt by Vrin, Geisterdame High Priestess, somehow The Other, the Geister's goddess, "uploaded" into Agatha's head -- Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne, returned to human form after nearly two decades of exile, by stealing her daughter's existence. Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus also duplicated "Lucrezia" into a high-level clank brain. He appropriated his sister, Anevka's clank body to create two Lucrezias, two Others, at the same time. However, Lucrezia did not calculate the overwhelming military might and brilliant logistics of Baron Wulfenbach correctly, nor her own daughter's cleverness, and her initial plans to reconquer Europa evaporated in light of a Slaver quarantine attack on Sturmhalten. When last seen, the clank Lucrezia had escaped with the Geisterdamen, many Slaver engines and the Holy Machine. The Lucrezia inside Agatha's head, however, found herself thoroughly suppressed by the repaired locket orginally given to Agatha by her Uncle Barry, and returned to her by the Baron. Questions and Theories * Even knowing what she knows about her mother, Agatha rejects the idea that Lucrezia was responsible for Klaus Barry's death. Was Lucrezia really just evil all along? Was she a good enough actress to fool Bill and Barry into thinking she had reformed? * Lucrezia's assistants were murdered and her notes were burned on the night of the attack on Castle Heterodyne. Did she do this or was this done by someone else? * What are The Other's motives? Why did the attacks start? * What happened to Lucrezia's body? Where did the other one come from, the one seen in the time window and in Vrin's flashback? * What is the "destroyed gate" Lady Vrin mentions? * How did Lucrezia establish a religion with the Geisterdamen? * What was the device the Geisterdamen were transporting when they left Sturmhalten? * Could it be that Lucrezia was not always The Other and The Other was downloaded into her like her daughter? If so where did The Other first come from? * Just how big is the conspiracy supporting the Other? Possibly relevant outside information The Other is an important concept in continental philosophy. (The term "continental philosophy" itself "was first widely used by English-speaking philosophers to describe university courses in the 1970s a name for phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, and post-structuralism", etc.) A vague caricature of the idea is: The Other is the (innocent) person whom I make into an enemy in order to improve my Self. Therefore, the fact that the Big Bad in Girl Genius is named “the Other” is another clue that said Big Bad is not a traditional enemy such as T'Otheron of Mars, &c. but in fact an ... ephemera. Category:Characters Category:Living Impaired Characters Category:Sparks Category:The Old Guard Category:Villains Category:Legendary Characters Category:Motifs